Lucca Ashtear (Japanese: ルッカ・アシュティア, Hepburn: Rukka Ashutia) is a character in the Chrono series of video games designed by Akira Toriyama. Her design did not change much during development, with the only major difference being a change in headgear. She is one of the main characters of the 1995 game Chrono Trigger by Square where she is known as a brilliant inventor in the canon of the series. She is the best friend of the protagonist Crono and is instrumental in advancing the story multiple times. She also appears in Chrono Cross as the caretaker to one of its protagonists, Kid. She has received praise for being a positive example of a female scientist in video games, with one critic suggesting that she is a positive influence for aspiring female scientists and engineers. She has also been discussed as a character defying gender stereotypes, due to her style of clothing and high level of intelligence. A scene where her mother loses the use of her legs and Lucca has the opportunity to use time travel to prevent this has been the subject of positive reception, both for the possibility of failure and in how it impacts Lucca emotionally, regardless of success.
Concept and creation Lucca Ashtear's design was created by Akira Toriyama. Her design had been fairly consistent throughout development, though at one point she wore a headband instead of a cap. She bears some resemblance to his Dr. Slump character Arale Norimaki. Her personality is described as dependable but boisterous. She is a genius scientist who creates multiple advanced technologies, including teleporting and time travel technology. Director Yoshinori Kitase was responsible for the creation of extra scenes featuring Lucca. Chrono Trigger story planner and script writer Masato Katō noted that Lucca was the character in the game that he felt most emotionally attached to, due to her kindness, dignity, and occasional obliviousness. He also identified the first time Robo and Lucca met as one of his favorite events in the game. When discussing a theoretical game to follow Chrono Cross, Katō discussed an idea where Kid, Lucca's adopted daughter, went on a quest to save her, Crono, and Marle. He ultimately rejected this idea due to his principle that "the past is the past". One significant scene relating to Lucca has her going back in time to save her mother from having her legs crushed, a task which may succeed or fail depending on players' ability. Originally, it was going to be impossible to prevent her injuries. While the solution to the scene involves inputting L, A, R, and A in the English version, the original Japanese version required players to input L, A, L, and A, which did not appear to have an easily discernible explanation since Lara's name is written in Japanese. In the Japanese version, past Lucca has letters written in the third person and initially wants to be a "normal bride" and thus dislikes science. If present Lucca fails to rescue her mother, she begins speaking in the third person; if she succeeds, her writing is a mixture of the first and third person. No matter whether she succeeds or fails, Lucca is driven to learn science to make sure something like this cannot happen again. In the English version, the bride aspect is dropped and replaced with an annoyance that her father is too busy with science to spend time with her. In the original Japanese version, fellow playable character Ayla suggests an attraction to Lucca due to her power, causing Lucca to grow defensive and saying that she does not "swing that way". In the English Super Nintendo version, the suggestion that Ayla was attracted to Lucca was removed and replaced with showing respect to her for her power. Chrono Trigger DS localizer Tom Slattery changed this English localization to be close to the original without explicit reference to Ayla's attraction to Lucca.
Appearances
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